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I'm fine with monsters that require out-of-the-box solutions, but only if the DM is open to a variety of possible out-of-the-box solutions. Trying to guess the one particular out-of-the-box solution that the DM is looking for tends to either be trivial (if it's telegraphed well) or maddening (if...

I entirely agree. My intent was only to refute the claim that all clerics do what their deity wants them to do.

Some clerics certainly do, but not all. If a setting has distant, enigmatic, or whimsical deities there can be clerics who have no idea what their deity wants them to do, clerics who have no idea who their deity is, or even clerics who actively oppose everything (they think) their deity stands...

I require backstories before a character enters play. I'm flexible on length and format, as long as it gives me and the player enough material to weave the character into the campaign setting and connect them to the other characters before play begins. Also, since I never start campaigns at 1st...

But did the flail pierce the monster's DR?

I did a variant of that type of game as a 5e campaign. To address the exploration issues mentioned above, I had all food grown, caught, or created in the region be inedible to anything from outside. So all the food for the exploratory expedition had to be imported or fished in deep water (i.e...

I think having the subsystem (or homebrew spells) is valuable even if it doesn't see play, because it adds depth to the setting. The players can better feel how warfare and magic mix in the setting if they can see the rules designed to support it. Whether the added depth is worth the trouble of...

I like adding dedicated battlefield magic to my game world. The PCs can learn it too, if they want to and can find someone willing to share a copy (or invent their own, similar spells). The most flashy is the 4th level Ballistic Fireball, which has longer range and allows blind fire by arcing...

I tend to find that in most Combat-as-War games (defined as the expectation that players use pre-initiative strategy to engineer encounters to be lopsided in their favor) tanking works better than it does in Combat-as-Sport games (defined as the expectation that characters use post-initiative...

Scale definitely makes a difference, although I think it's complicated by the resolution of the preparation. From my standpoint, just-in-time creation lets a DM run a much (geographically) larger sandbox without the prohibitive levels of advanced prep required to create sufficient detail to run...

I get that. It can be a little too much like real life sometimes. :) It does help a bit if the majority of the plotlines are positive opportunities for the PCs, rather than crises requiring attention. While I acknowledge the drawbacks, I really like how an overabundance of opportunities...

That's fair. :) In my campaigns I find that encouraging adventuring over non-adventuring isn't an issue. Maybe it's just that I tend to include an exorbitant number of simultaneous plotlines, so the PCs are always scrambling to accomplish what they can before the opportunities are lost, or the...

Thanks for the detailed reply! I think I have a better sense now of where you're coming from. I'm going to start collapsing the different topics we were discussing into a holistic response--if I miss replying to something you'd like a specific response to, please don't hesitate to ask. Also...

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I really appreciate it! Alas, I'm still not sure I follow. What does "pursuing XP effectively" look like at your table, in comparison to "not pursuing XP effectively"? In other words, can you describe the types of decision points where you want the XP...

Your response doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so maybe I've misunderstood what you are arguing in favor of. To clarify, I was under the impression that you were arguing in favor of using encounter-based XP because you want players to be able to make choices that prioritize character...

Because making decisions in-character is a process, not a result. If I give weight to OOC factors like potential XP gain in additional to the character's IC concerns, that's a different process than focusing exclusively on IC concerns. For example, let's say the PCs are deciding between two...

The time-saving advantage of not tracking XP on a per-encounter basis is heightened at tables where the DM doesn't balance encounters based on CR. In combination, not tracking per-encounter XP and not using CR to balance encounters lets the DM avoid the entire CR system in the first place...

I entirely agree that the usage of the word "target" is contextual in 5e. But if that's the point @NotAYakk is making, then I misunderstood it. I read @NotAYakk as arguing that "target" in 5e consistently means what one would expect it to mean outside of 5e (i.e. using natural language than a...

While that's sometimes true, it isn't true in every situation and every context. Sometimes the designers use "target" in very specific ways. Continuing the Fireball example, if you rule that objects are targets because they are affected by the spell, you create a contradiction. This is because...

I don't think that's quite right. Based on the wording of Fireball, only creatures are targets (and thus take damage from the spell). Fireball can ignite objects, but it never refers to them as targets. Specifically, the spell only requires "creatures" to make saving throws, and then only deals...